This invention pertains to yoga, and in particular, to wearable hand and foot devices, referred to herein variously as garments or wraps (somewhat glove-like for the hand, and sock-like for the foot) that are designed both to enhance positional stability and comfort (skin-contact, moisture-removal, and ventilation) during a yoga session. The hand and foot are referred to commonly herein as a person's, or a user's, terminal-anatomical-appendage.
Those familiar with yoga recognize that positional stability and comfort in the practice of yoga are matters that are always subject to require improvement. The present invention takes direct aim at such improvement, and offers a fresh and impressive approach to handling these two matters.
During the usual yoga session, a participant assumes various, specialized postures and positions, typically with both hands and feet engaged with some form of external structure for stable, hopefully “relatively fixed”, and also hopefully relatively comfortable, support of the body, sequentially in different, determined configurations, for selected time intervals as the session progresses. Hand and foot positions involving external-structure engagements during a yoga exercise are, at least during the mentioned, selected time intervals, and in most instances, intended to remain (but often don't) comfortably, and substantially precisely (i.e., stably) in place, i.e., without slippage or appreciable change in condition, and without hand or foot skin irritation or other discomfort, such as overheating.
This idealized situation, however, does not often happen for reasons that relate, inter alia, to the facts that significant, potentially de-stabilizing forces, and uncomfortable support pressures, are involved in many conventional yoga exercises.
Various equipment approaches (garments and floor mats) have been tried in the past to achieve remedies, but many of these have not been remarkably successful or satisfactory. For example, made available today for yoga practice are many kinds of frictioning-surface mats, as well as various styles of specialized hand and foot glove-like and sock-like garments. These prior art devices, however, have, in certain ways, “missed the mark”, chiefly because of what appears to be a failure both (a) to deal with what can be thought of as a dual-nature character of positional-stability management, and (b), to attend to the associated need to consider garment internal construction and its bearing upon both stability control and comfort. These stability- and comfort-associated points, I have discovered, are collaboratively linked, and while they may, at first glance, appear to be of only modest concern, they are not modest at all.
The devices proposed by the present invention, in practice, dramatically dispel whatever sense of modest importance one might initially ascribe to the linked issues just mentioned.
The present invention concerns, generally, yoga hand and foot garments, referred to herein also, and variously, as wraps, as gloves and as socks, and specifically, very carefully considered, newly conceived, hand and foot wraps possessing unique features that enhance the yoga experience (1) by notably maximizing stable yoga positioning in comparison with the stabilizing performances of conventional hand and foot yoga garments, while at the same time (2) significantly minimizing certain discomfort difficulties, discussed below herein, that are sometimes experienced with various, prior art hand and foot garments.
Considering a conventional setting for and in relation to which the present invention offers improvement, and using the hand wearing a glove as an illustration, wherein a yoga pose is assumed which involves significant force delivered through the arm and hand and glove to some external support surface, with considerable pressure existing in between the hand-worn glove and that support surface, and particularly where the axis of the arm lies at a relatively low angle in relation to the external support surface, there is a very clear and natural tendency (1) for the hand to tend to slip forwardly in the glove, even to the point of attempting to escape the glove, and at the same time, and to some extent triggered by such slippage, (2) for the “grip” between the glove and the support surface to fail.
This kind of situation which, of course, is not acceptable, is one that is particularly well addressed by the features (set forth in detail below) of the present invention. These features are ones which, while permitting a very limited, and truly extremely modest, version of the just-mentioned, hand-relative-to-glove, “natural-tendency” slip motion under the circumstances described, otherwise controllably minimize the likelihood of both (1) the hand undesirably slipping forwardly extensively from the glove, and at the same time (2), the failure of stable frictional engagement between the glove and the external support surface.
In addition, it is well understood that once a traditional yoga session has begun, sweating occurs, and it is important that this be dealt with, and that the hand be kept as sweat-free, cool and temperature-comfortable as possible. Here, too, the present invention offers comfort-control features that deal with these sweat- and cooling-associated matters.
Further in the realm of comfort, and still with respect to the-hand-in-glove illustrative situation, it is important that anything internally exposed in a glove, such as seam structure which joins glove components, not produce an irritant to the hand under the same kinds of force and pressure conditions mentioned above. Here, too, the structure of the present invention successfully addresses this concern.
The present invention offers a unique structure which responds to all of these considerations by enhancing comfort and stability during a user's yoga practice. More specifically, the garment of the present invention takes the form of a wearable structure for the hand or the foot, having external-structure contact and non-contact sides joined through a uniting seam whose welt-like bulk is entirely external in nature, definitively avoids introducing any irritant on the inside of the garment to the hand or foot wearing it.
On its external-structure contact side, the proposed garment features the exposed outer surface of a high-frictioning material which is non-perforate. The inner surface (within the garment) of this high-frictioning material, is covered by a freely engaging (i.e., capable of exhibiting a very limited amount of surface-to-surface relative motion in its relationship to the frictioning material) moisture-wicking liner which wicks away palm and underfoot sweat for enhancing both comfort and positional stability conditions. On its external-surface noncontact side, the garment includes, for the hand, a perforate ventilating fabric, and for the foot, a thin expanse of a highly stretchy fabric.
Additionally, the garment of the present invention, adjacent its open front end, includes for the foot, one, and for the hand plural, inter-digit elastomeric strap(s) that receive(s), inter-digitally, the digits of the user's hand or foot further to stabilize hand or foot positioning inside the garment. These straps, because of their elasticity, importantly allow, but permit only a very limited amount of, forward-motion slip of the hand or foot relative to the associated garment during a yoga session. This “allowance” accommodates the kind of natural slip propensity mentioned above, without permitting so much slip that positional stability might be jeopardized.
These and other special features and advantages of and offered by the present invention will become more readily apparent as external-structure contact the detailed description of it which is presented below is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Components and dimensions employed in these five figures are not necessarily drawn to scale.